The Last Supper

Leonardo painted it on the refectory wall of Santa Maria delle Grazie between about 1495 and 1498, using an experimental technique that began failing within his lifetime. It has been restored repeatedly, most recently over twenty-one years to 1999, and what survives is fragile enough that the room’s atmosphere is controlled.

That is why the visit works as it does: about thirty people at a time, fifteen minutes, through an air lock. Allied bombing took the roof off the refectory in 1943 and the wall survived behind sandbags.

What it costs

Ticketed, and the ticket is the whole problem. Slots are fifteen minutes, numbers per slot are small, and they are released in batches well in advance and go quickly.

⛔ Book months ahead. ⚠️ Official tickets come from the state booking service; guided tours resell the same slots at a markup and are sometimes the only thing left. Neither is a scam — but know which you are buying.

When to go

Whatever slot you can get. Arrive twenty minutes early: entry is by name at a set time and latecomers are not admitted.

⭐ If it is gone, the church itself is free and open, and the Bramante apse behind the altar is worth the walk on its own.

Getting there

Conciliazione on M1, or tram 16. Sant’Ambrogio is ten minutes away and is the obvious pairing.

⭐ One urban ticket lasts 90 minutes and covers the metro, the trams and the buses inside the city zones — one metro journey plus as many surface changes as you can fit. A contactless bank card works at the gate, and ⚠️ you tap the same card again on the way out of a metro station. See Getting Around.

If you only have an hour

Fifteen minutes is what you get, and it is enough. Give the hour to the church, the cloister and Sant’Ambrogio afterwards.

What people get wrong

⛔ People plan the trip and then look for tickets. Do it the other way round: find the slot first and build the days around it. That single inversion is what this whole site is about.

⚠️ No photography in the refectory.